Open and Affirming

LGBTQ History, the UCC and St. Pauls Church

1924 — Henry Gerber, German immigrant, establishes in Chicago the Society for Human Rights, the first recognized gay rights group in the US.

1961 — Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize sodomy and behavior “by consenting adults in private.”

1968 — Troy Perry founds Metropolitan Community Church in California.

1969 — Stonewall Riots/Uprising/Rebellion in NYC. A 3-day series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid in the early morning hours of June 28 at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of NYC. Frequently cited as the first instance where the LGBTQ community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities. Often considered the defining event that marked the start of the LGBTQ rights movement in the US and around the world.

1970 — First Chicago Gay Rights/Gay Pride March held (from Bughouse Square to Daley Plaza) – to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

1973 — American Psychiatric Association (APA) votes to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. [meaning that simply that status of being LGBTQ was no longer considered to be a mental illness].

2002 — Illinois Conference of the UCC adopts resolution declaring itself and “all of its structures and policies” to be Open and Affirming, and encouraging local churches to declare themselves to be Open and Affirming to all persons, specifically including LGBTQ persons, their family and friends (adopting a resolution introduced by St Pauls Church and the Illinois Conference Coalition of LGBT Concerns in 1989).